“There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie Boy, and Dim. And we sat in the Korova Milk Bar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova Milk Bar sold milk plus – milk plus vellocet, or synthemesc, or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old Ultra-violence.”

(Alex DeLarge, A Clockwork Orange)

I absolutely adoreA Clockwork Orange – and that’s not merely because I’m a professed Kubrick fan. There is just so much to like about it – its harsh dystopia, mesmerizing protagonist, inventive language, retro-futurist aesthetics and nihilistic yet strongly ethical message.

One of the other likeable things is the opening theme by Wendy Carlos (who went on to make the equally jarring score for The Shining, among others) – a chilling electronic adaptation of Henry Purcell’s The Queen’s Funeral March. Thankfully, there are a few souls out there who seem to think likewise. So until I finally make up my rassoodocks and record my readings of the script*, you can keep up with some gorgeous renditions of the main theme.

2 responses to “Me and my droogs”

I don’t think Burgess ever claimed to create an accurate description of the Russian language. What he did create, however, was a hypothetical but credible pidgin with elements borrowed from Russian. The influence is rather in vocabulary than grammatical structure. Russenorsk, a pidgin used by Russian and Norwegian fishermen on the Kola Peninsula in the 18th and 19th centuries, follows a similar pattern.